Seven Interior Design Psychology Ideas for Dining Pleasure
May 31, 2007
A separate dining room adds glamour, elegance, and excitement to a shared meal. Celebratory, sociable space, apart from the confusion of the kitchen, makes every dinner more meaningful.
1. A round dining table is less formal and aides in full conversation, with everyone participating together.
2. For comfortable dining, the seat height feels best when it is nine inches from the table top.
3. White and light colored tablecloths reflect light upwards providing more illumination for large parties.
4. Dark wood absorbs the light for intimate dining, keeping the room moody and romantic.
5. Gold lamae fabric sparkles under lace tablecloths.
6. Stemware gives a buoyant, bubbly, and upbeat feeling.
7. White china, green napkins, heavy cut glass, even for young families (liquids taste better in glasses than in plastic), and candlelight make an ordinary meal taste scrumptious.
Copyright (c) 2004 by Jeanette J. Fisher
Professor Jeanette Fisher, author of Doghouse to Dollhouse for Dollars, Joy to the Home, and other books teaches Real Estate Investing and Design Psychology. For more articles, tips, reports, newsletters, and sales flyer template, see http://www.doghousetodollhousefordollars.com/pages/5/index.htm
Dining Rooms: Designing for Your Emotional Well-Being
May 30, 2007
I read an interior design book last night. Since I can’t recommend it to you, I won’t reveal the name. What I saw was a group of photographs asking the reader to choose her favorite dining room. After studying the rooms carefully, I decided that not one room presented good design for eating and conversing!
Several of the dining rooms used wallpaper in bold patterns that compete with nonexistent diners. Most of these rooms offered uncomfortable seating, either too big for intimate conversation or too little for personal comfort. The “cozy” dining rooms were cluttered with too many accessories; the “formal” and “elegant” rooms were too stiff and cold. This is how I labeled the dining rooms:
1. Cluttered Country 2. Bleak Stiff Modern 3. Wallpaper Madness Traditional 4. Cold Contemporary 5. Stark Shaker 6. Bland Eclectic 7. Pretty for Parties with Misguided Colors 8. Governor’s Mansion for Once a Year
If you want to makeover your dining room for good conversations and dining pleasure, here are a few new interior design tips from Design Psychology strategies:
Design Psychology: Beds and Emotional Well-Being
May 30, 2007
The bed represents the beginning and ending of life. In the past, people were conceived, born, and died in the same bed. You spend more time in your bed than on any other piece of furniture. Design Psychology offers new bedroom makeover ideas concerning your bed for supporting your emotional well-being.
Bed Placement for Secure Feelings
Position the headboard directly opposite the doorway up against a wall. This creates the visual expansion of the room and underscores the bed’s importance. As the main attraction, the bed represents the focal point of the room.
A greater reason to place the bed so that it faces the doorway is for a feeling of security. People feel safe with a clear view of the door. With the door behind your vision, you feel like someone can sneak up behind you. However, some bedrooms with a separate entry space coming into the main area present a dilemma; positioning a mirror in a way that reflects the blind spot corrects this problem. Convex mirrors, those that curves or bulge outward, help you to see down the hallway.
Beds and Enclosure
Cyclamen
May 29, 2007
Think of cyclamen and the chances are that Mothers Day immediately comes to mind, which is something of a pity. Now don’t misinterpret me, there’s nothing wrong with mothers or with having a day for them, but it does seem a little unfortunate when such beautiful, adaptable and useful plants become so commercialised that there’s difficulty escaping that association.
But no plant as beautiful as the wild cyclamen can remain so neatly packaged and presented as its cultivated forms may have it. Gardeners are always willing to experiment, to use outdoors what might be considered house plants and to seek out less widely grown but hardier species for their gardens.
Once thought to consist of many species, the genus Cyclamen is now considered to include just 19 species, some of which encompass subspecies and forms previously considered distinct. Related to the primroses, they form a few large tubers or numerous small ones, soon spreading to cover a considerable area, if happy. They occur naturally in southern Europe, neighbouring western Asia and the moister parts of North Africa with one species from Somalia, and as with many of the western Asian bulbs, corms and tubers, some species are now rare in the wild because they have been over-collected by commercial bulb gatherers and enthusiasts.
Creating Dynamic Window Coverings Without Breaking the Budget
May 28, 2007
When creating dynamic window coverings, it’s important to choose carefully, because your window coverings will become the focal points of a well-decorated room. But choosing the right window treatments, at the right price, takes some thought about not only the look you’re hoping to achieve, but also about the nature of the space itself.
The first consideration will be how much exposure the fabric is going to receive. All fabrics are susceptible to sunlight, but many homemakers invest in acrylic, modacrylic, polyester, or another glass-based fabric in order to get the longest life out of window treatments. Although it gives a room an elegant feel, silk is most vulnerable to sunlight.
I save money on window treatments by using some imagination and creativity. For example, I often create a custom look by covering a tension rod with a thicker piece of PVC pipe. To avoid having the PVC’s printing bleed into my fabric, I sand off the numbers, but the printing can also be neutralized by using PVC primer, acetone, or even fingernail polish.
Three Great Concepts for Remodeling a Master Bedroom
May 27, 2007
Since it’s one of the places people spend the most time, one of the most satisfying home makeovers is the main bedroom. Here are three ideas for creating a dynamic new main bedroom space:
The Passion Boudoir
The French have always led the world in designing sexy bedrooms, and now homemakers all over the world have followed their lead and begun decorating their bedrooms for sex and sensuality.
Use emotionally appealing colors that will enhance your beauty and sensuousness. Be daring; use bold colors. Examples of seductive colors are rouge or lipstick reds, creamy peaches, and subtle pink tones.
Prints such as animals or florals can suggest exotic locales, and mirrors placed in unusual places can reflect seductive candlelight. Tropic plants add mystery, and dressing tables filled with feminine accessories and intimate objects create a romantic mood.
The Reading Room
For many people, the bedroom is a place to lounge and read a good book. If you’re one of those people, you’ll want to create a space that will enhance your reading pleasure. For instance, adding padded headboards will make it easy to maintain proper posture while reading.
Whats So Special About My Front Door?
May 26, 2007
“The doors we open and close each day decide the lives we live.” - Flora Whittemore
Your front door welcomes all to your home. This declarative statement of your house — the exclamation point of your home — needs to sing out your welcoming note.
First impressions are not just for guests. Generally, we do not receive as much company as we think we do. We lead such busy lives and simply do not entertain or visit friends often enough.
Decorating your home to impress others is not as important as decorating your home for your own pleasure. Create a welcoming and warm retreat in which you feel great joy just to arrive. Do you feel happy when you see your home in the distance? Does your first glimpse of home bring a smile to your face?
A problem with many new homes is that developers do not provide a separate walkway to your front door. To make yourself and your guests feel more welcome than a car, provide a separate front walkway from the street to the front door. Don’t make guests walk around cars and trip on driveway edges to navigate to the entrance.
Alarm Systems: Not Just For The Wealthy Anymore!
May 25, 2007
Over the last 22 years that I have been involved in the security alarm industry, I have seen quite an evolution. Changes have not only taken place in what type of equipment is available, but also in how the consumer buys and use’s the equipment.
When I first started in the business, alarms where used mostly for commercial applications. Businesses had to have them to watch over their product while they were closed. Insurance companies made sure their clients had one installed.
Residential alarm systems were owned mostly by well to do professionals who could afford such a luxury. As the years progressed people in or near big cities were getting burglarized and wanted to send future burglars to the neighbor’s house by installing a system in their home.
In the nineties large alarm companies speculated that the potential of the residential market was not being realized. Homeowners were not willing to layout thousands of dollars to protect their color televisions and stereos because that would be like buying them again anyway. Homeowners would rather gamble on the hope that they would not be victimized anytime soon.
Growing Palms
May 25, 2007
Palms
Everybody recognises palm trees, they are the universal symbol for the tropics but many are hardy enough for our temperate climate gardens. Until recently New Zealand gardeners have had only a very limited range of palms to choose from. In the last five years the range has grown enormously as nurseries have been encouraged by gardeners eager to experiment.
Nevertheless, palms are, on the whole, slightly tender plants. Those that will tolerate regular frosts of -6°C. or more are few in number. If your minimum temperature does not drop below -2°C or if you are in a frost free area the range of suitable plants increases considerably.
There are two main styles of palms; the fan and the feather. The names refer to the layout of the fronds. Fan palms have the leaflets of the frond arranged just like a hand operated fan. The most widely grown fan palm is Trachycarpus fortunei, the Chinese Fan Palm. Feather palms have the leaflets of their fronds arranged along a rigid midrib like a bird’s feather. The most commonly grown feather palm is Phoenix canariensis, the Canary Island Date Palm.
Lighting and Your Emotions (Part One)
May 24, 2007
Do you feel unhappy in your home and you don’t know why? Maybe you need to let the light shine! Add new light to your rooms for an instant uplift.
Lighting affects you more than any other design detail in your home. Your choice of lighting fixtures, light bulbs, and color of light makes a difference in your emotional and physical comfort. Lighting is both an art and a science.
Correct use of lighting benefits you in many ways. Besides allowing you to see, lighting sets the emotional atmosphere. You spend most of your day in activity. You need good lighting for these activities, to see clearly, to prevent fatigue, and to support your happiness.
Lighting helps change a room for different uses more easily than any other design detail. We can light a room for the occasion or the activity of the moment. The change and variation provided by lighting enhances the rhythms of our daily lives.
From flickering candles and twinkling party lights to advanced micro-lighting systems, lighting gives us either a comfortable or a miserable emotional atmosphere. Understanding the effects of different lighting helps you select the exact fixture and light source to create the desired emotional setting.
